Chapter 95: Chapter 95
"How is it, boy? Tastes pretty good, doesn’t it? I specially went looking for fresh ingredients. Since you’re Little Jiraiya’s disciple, you naturally need special care."
Shima looked proud.
"Haha, of course. Ma’s cooking is beyond question. It’s all my favorite food!"
Fukasaku rubbed his round belly and praised her from the bottom of his heart.
Facing the two searching gazes, Kiriya squeezed out a smile and shakily raised a thumb.
"I knew you’d like it."
Shima’s motivation surged.
"Today was still a little rushed. Just you wait. Next time, I’ll make you something super luxurious!"
Kiriya: "..."
His face turned blue, and he secretly made up his mind.
No matter what, he had to learn Sage Mode as quickly as possible!
Otherwise, if this dragged on too long, he was afraid his taste buds and stomach would leave the category of human beings entirely.
"Old man, let’s start training."
Kiriya suddenly stood up, clenched his fists, and spoke with unprecedented determination.
For the sake of his mouth and stomach, he was going all in.
"Oh, you’re quite fired up."
Fukasaku nodded in satisfaction.
Since the kid was this enthusiastic, he, as the elder, could not drag him down.
So he stood up with the dog-beating stick in hand and brought Kiriya back to the toad oil waterfall, beginning a new round of stick-based training.
"Mm, ah, ow, urgh—!"
The rhythmic screams continued ringing out, echoing between the peaks of Mount Myōboku and startling countless birds into flight.
Quite a few toads ran nearby to secretly watch.
Seeing Kiriya repeatedly being served by Fukasaku’s stick, their eyes filled with a mixture of sympathy and admiration.
"That human... he’s training Sage Mode, right?"
"So impressive. I don’t even have the chance to train it."
"Your chakra is too little."
"I tried before, but getting hit by Fukasaku-sama hurt way too much. That human can actually endure it for this long. He’s amazing."
"I heard he’s Jiraiya-sama’s disciple."
"Ohhh, then that makes sense."
Kiriya, who was immersed in training, had no idea that his miserable appearance was being strongly spectated.
Before long, it even became a regular entertainment program among the toads of Mount Myōboku.
Life here was carefree, but it was also rather dull and monotonous.
Now that there was such an interesting show to watch, of course they had to come over and join the fun.
And so, time passed quickly amid Kiriya’s screams and the toads’ cheerful laughter.
...
In the blink of an eye, a full day had passed.
"I did it!"
Kiriya suddenly stood up and let out a long roar toward the sky.
He could clearly feel that vast and powerful chakra.
It was as if endless strength was surging through his body, and Kiriya even had the feeling that he could shatter a mountain with one punch.
"Boy, try lifting that stone toad statue."
Fukasaku pointed at the enormous stone toad statue more than ten meters tall beside them.
"Ooohhh."
Kiriya had already been eager to try. Hearing this, he crossed several dozen meters in one step and arrived beneath the stone toad statue.
Then he grabbed it with both hands and lifted upward with force.
Rumble—
Amid a violent trembling sound, and under the horrified gazes of the toads hiding in the dark, Kiriya slowly lifted the stone toad statue until he finally raised it over his head.
"So... so strong."
"He can actually do the same thing as Fukasaku-sama."
Kiriya laughed loudly, feeling more refreshed than ever.
This stone toad was made of genuine rock, and its weight was no joke.
A conservative estimate would put it at over a hundred tons. Yet with his current physical strength alone, Kiriya could lift it with ease.
And this...
Was still far from the limit of his current strength.
As his Sage Mode grew more refined, Kiriya’s strength would continue to rise even further.
"Just how far can I reach? I’m really looking forward to it."
Kiriya sighed emotionally, then gently placed the stone toad statue back down.
After all, according to Fukasaku, these were past predecessors. He could not be too disrespectful.
Although lifting them up was already disrespectful enough.
"Good, good. I didn’t expect you to be able to enter Sage Mode with toad oil after only one day!"
Fukasaku looked at Kiriya with great appreciation.
’This boy did even better than Jiraiya-chan back then.’
"Next, let me try this."
With several leaps, Kiriya arrived beside a pond and took a stance for punching.
"This boy is going to..."
Fukasaku’s eyelid twitched slightly, and he quickly moved farther away.
"Destructive Death: Air Type."
Kiriya threw a punch, and a massive air cannon instantly plunged into the water.
Immediately afterward, the entire pond looked as if it had been struck by a missile, sending waves surging into the sky before scattering into rain-like droplets.
"To think he even knows such powerful taijutsu."
Fukasaku sighed.
"With that kind of physique, he’s practically a monster. Speaking of which, Jiraiya at this age... All right, let’s not compare them."
To avoid hurting Jiraiya’s feelings, Fukasaku decisively stopped that line of thought.
"Nice, nice! The power increased several times over."
Kiriya smiled brightly.
However, when he looked at the small bumps still visible all over his body, the corner of his mouth twitched.
"It’s just that this appearance..."
With this appearance, rather than calling him a sage, it would be more accurate to call him a toad spirit that had failed to fully transform!
"Relax. Once you train Sage Mode to a certain level, these traits can be controlled and made to disappear."
Fukasaku comforted him.
Kiriya could only suppress the urge to complain for now and continue training.
After using toad oil a few more times to familiarize himself with the feeling, Kiriya followed Fukasaku to a high, steep peak.
The slope of the mountain was extremely sharp, almost vertical to the ground.
The highest point was so narrow it looked like the tip of a needle, and Kiriya had to sit on a wooden board placed on top of it.
"Your next stage of training is to enter Sage Mode by relying on yourself," Fukasaku said. "And the core principle for doing that is stillness."
"Boy, don’t confuse this ’stillness’ with sitting around in a daze."
Fukasaku’s tone grew serious.
"It means making your heart as calm as still water and blending with nature."
"But knowing it is easy, doing it is hard. This kind of state isn’t something just anyone can reach. Jiraiya spent quite some time on it. I wonder how long you’ll take."
"Then let’s try."
Kiriya stepped along the cliff wall and walked to the top of the peak.
He placed the wooden board on the needle-like summit, assumed the posture of five hearts facing heaven, and then tried to calm his mind and gather his energy.
He tried to let his eyes observe his nose, his nose observe his heart, and enter a state where both self and world were forgotten.
At first, it was naturally extremely difficult.
The hardest things for a person to control were the heart and mind. Otherwise, there would not be sayings about a restless heart and wandering thoughts.
As long as there was the slightest movement of wind or grass nearby, his mental state would fluctuate, and he would fall.
Fortunately, Fukasaku was reliable enough.
Otherwise, Kiriya would have already been smashed into a pancake.
...
For several days in a row, Kiriya practically welded himself to that place, constantly exploring the method of entering Sage Mode together with his shadow clones.
That insane intensity frightened even Fukasaku a little.
Trying to rush things often produced the opposite result.
Being too obsessed could damage the body and disturb the mind, so Fukasaku repeatedly advised him to slow down.
On the surface, Kiriya agreed. He ate when it was time to eat and slept when it was time to sleep.
But after Fukasaku and the others fell asleep, he crawled out of bed and continued training.
’I’m going to grind, grind, and grind some more!’
Strangely enough, even with Kiriya training this desperately, he did not show signs of mental exhaustion or weakness. Instead, he became more and more energetic.
Because of that, Fukasaku could not see anything unusual at all and really thought Kiriya was resting obediently.
After this hellish training, rich results finally arrived seven days later.
Through his own efforts, Kiriya finally entered Sage Mode.
What made Kiriya even happier was that aside from his eyes turning into toad-like horizontal pupils and orange eyeshadow appearing at the corners of his eyes, there were no other changes to his appearance.
With one leap, Kiriya jumped directly down from the several-hundred-meter-high mountain.
When he landed, he smashed the ground rocks into fragments, yet his own body was completely unharmed.
This was the terrifying part of Sage Mode.
The entire body was greatly activated. Not only did his resistance to impact rise by leaps and bounds, but his recovery ability also became frighteningly powerful.
"Good, good! Your control over senjutsu chakra is quite impressive."
Fukasaku opened his mouth to praise him, though in his heart, he was once again shocked by Kiriya’s performance.
In less than ten days, Kiriya had successfully mastered Sage Mode.
Even if one searched the entire history of Mount Myōboku, there would not be a second example of such exaggerated progress.
If a certain white-haired toad sage who spent several years before entering Sage Mode learned about this, he might cry himself unconscious in the bathroom.
"Jiraiya-chan..."
Fukasaku had just started to speak, then stopped himself.
He decided that in the future, he should avoid bringing this up in front of Jiraiya as much as possible, lest Jiraiya suffer too great a blow to his pride.
After adjusting his mood, Fukasaku looked at Kiriya, and the more he looked, the more he liked him. He waved him over.
"Next, it’s time to teach you how to use senjutsu chakra in combat. Now, use your taijutsu and attack me with everything you have."
"Oh?"
Kiriya raised an eyebrow, but did not immediately agree. Instead, he hesitated a little.
"But old man, with my current strength, I’m afraid..."
"Afraid of what? Afraid you’ll hurt me?"
Fukasaku snorted, and a powerful aura worthy of a sage surged from him.
"I am Fukasaku Sage of Mount Myōboku. You think a mere boy’s taijutsu can hurt me? Come at me with everything you have!"
"But..."
"No buts! I’m in Sage Mode too. My physical condition isn’t worse than yours."
Fukasaku was very dissatisfied with Kiriya’s hesitation and decided to let him properly experience the power of Frog Kata in a moment.
"All right!"
Kiriya finally stopped rambling. With one step, he rushed forward.
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